Accepting Grief

Flash Fiction by C.J. Heck

Accepting Grief
Flash Fiction by C.J. Heck

Today, a boiler blew in the basement of the little preschool where Warren Dixon’s wife, Tanny, was a teacher. Fire and smoke filled the room within seconds.

Paramedics told Warren Tanny died in the fire along with two remaining children she couldn’t save. Her efforts had been nothing short of heroic with the twelve terrified children she managed to get outside.

Things like this aren’t supposed to happen, not to good people! His mind and his whole world were slipping away and he felt paralyzed. He wanted to die, too.

Grief was so different from how he had always thought of it. It wasn’t just a one syllable word, or a single sad feeling. Grief was soul-numbing, and suffocating, and it surrounded him everywhere! It bypassed all right or wrong, like it didn’t give a damn who it crushed.

Grief was alive, and grief was huge. Grief was so real, it should have its own first and last name.

Out of a thousand feelings assaulting him and within seconds of them switching places, the worst of all of them was guilt for all the anger Warren was feeling.

He was angry with God. “How could You let this happen? How could You reach into my chest and rip out my heart? That’s no way to show divine love! Why?”

In between, there were feelings of anguish and disbelief. “Tanny, why would you leave me? You promised to love me forever.”

The next morning, Warren went to see Ned Small, a friend and therapist downstairs in the building where he worked. Warren called Ned because he thought for sure he was losing his mind.

Net assured Warren that grief is different from one person to the next. No one experiences grief the same way, or takes the same amount of time to heal. Warren had so many questions, mainly WHY? Why was he so mad at God? Why take Tanny? She was too young to die.

Ned told him he did the right thing by getting help early. There are several stages of grief everyone has to go through and all are normal. He felt he could help Warren recognize them for what they are –-normal stages.

While Ned was talking, Warren’s mind was screaming. “How can life appear so normal when nothing can ever be normal again!”

A woodpecker drummed in a nearby tree; someone was blowing leaves off their driveway; children were calling “You’re It” playing tag; a far-off siren warned drivers to get out of the way; somewhere a dog growled; even the breeze from the window was the same breeze he felt a thousand times before. Were they trying to convince him life was still the same?

Warren kept thinking about a song he heard years ago: “Don’t they know, it’s the end of the world …?”

Well, don’t they … ?

Ned knew he had his work cut out for him. Warren would be a challenge, but Ned had an excellent track record and he had been where Warren is now.

Ned knew first hand, loss hurts. It hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. That’s how he knew he could help. He already called grief by its first and last names …